SOUTH BAY: The congresswoman is praised by small firms receiving parts of the $16 million in earmarks she sought.

By Gene Maddaus

STAFF WRITER

Rep. Jane Harman obtained more than $16 million in earmarks in this year’s defense appropriations bill, mostly for small South Bay firms, according to a database compiled by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Seven of Harman’s eight requests will fund projects under development in the South Bay, while the eighth will go to an infectious disease lab at UCLA. None was requested by the Pentagon.

This is the first year that Congress has disclosed the names of each of the representatives who sought earmarks in appropriations bills. But they didn’t make it easy to track down, listing the names and the dollar amounts on separate tables, and not putting any of it on the Internet.

“It’s still not great,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

“If you’re really trying to be transparent in this day and age, you go ahead and put it on the Internet.”

Harman, D-El Segundo, is hardly the most prolific earmarker of defense programs. That title goes to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who got $150.5 million for 48 items in this year’s defense bill. In all, members of Congress added $3billion in earmarks to this year’s bill.

Most of Harman’s earmarks will fund experimental technologies, such as a more sophisticated unmanned aircraft, “forgery proof” identification cards, and scanners that can detect hazardous cargo in shipping containers.

Nextgen Aeronautics, a 5-year-old Torrance company with 33 employees, won a $1 million earmark to develop a small unmanned aircraft with sophisticated antennas. The aircraft is intended for battlefield reconnaissance, but could someday be used for border security, said Jay Kudva, the company president.

“Congresswoman Harman is a big supporter of aerospace startups,” said Kudva, who left Northrop Grumman to start the firm. He added that such smaller companies, “sometimes fall through the cracks of big (Department of Defense) budgets.”

Another contractor on Harman’s list is Applied Signal Technology, which is based in Maryland but will use its funding to develop a neutron imaging system at its Torrance office.

Because the project is intelligence-related, the amount of the earmark was not disclosed. Bob Teague, a company vice president, said the system will be able to see through solid barriers to detect security threats.

“Ms. Harman is concerned about being able to look into cargo containers,” Teague said. “She’s been over to the lab and seen some of the lab work we’ve done. She’s very interested in pushing this technology as fast as she can.”

The scanner is smaller than other such devices that have already been developed. It is about 150 pounds and would be portable, Teague said. Ultimately, he said, the company hopes to get into the airport security market.

Intelligent Optical Systems in Torrance got a $3 million earmark to develop a fiber-optic sensor that could detect toxic gases in public places such as airports or transit terminals.

CEO John Farina said that the “beta” version of the system has already been installed but declined to say where.

“There’s some still-classified information that I’m not able to talk about,” he said.

Also on the list is Physical Optics Corp., which employs about 175 people at its Torrance headquarters. The company got a

$2 million earmark to develop WPIC, a wireless system to access soldiers’ medical records on the battlefield.

“We’ve developed prototypes, but it’s not ready for prime time,” said Rick Shie, a senior vice president at the firm. “We’re going to use the money to take it to the next level.”

Harman has been to the company’s headquarters twice, Shie said.

“We told her, `Don’t do it because we’re in your district and you like us,”‘ he said. “`Do it because it’s needed.”‘

A spinoff of the company, Optikey in Huntington Beach, got a $1 million earmark to develop the “forgery-proof” ID card for Department of Defense access cards.

“Jane Harman is a fantastic congresswoman,” Shie said. “She works so hard for the district. It is unbelievable. I can’t say enough good things about Jane.”

As for the other members of the South Bay delegation, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-L.A., got one earmark, worth $1 million, for Marvin Engineering in Inglewood, which makes missile launchers. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, did not have any earmarks.

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